Written Answers Wednesday 28 February 2007

Scottish Executive

Child Welfare

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-19640 by Peter Peacock on 28 October 2005, whether the commitment to provide details of a single point of contact for each organisation that could be published on the Executive website to assist those seeking to access their personal files has now been honoured by the relevant organisations and, if so, when it expects to publish the information.

Hugh Henry: Yes. The updated information will be published shortly.

Child Welfare

Linda Fabiani (Central Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive, further to the answer to question S2W-31549 by Hugh Henry on 13 February 2007, how the helpline was advertised (a) prior to February 2005 and (b) from February to August 2005 and at what cost.

Hugh Henry: The helpline operated by Who Cares? Scotland was advertised on the website of the Scottish Executive. INCAS was funded to circulate information to its membership. A news release was also issued by the Scottish Executive on 1 April 2005.

Drug Misuse

Ms Rosemary Byrne (South of Scotland) (Sol): To ask the Scottish Executive how often, on average, heroin users inject each day.

Cathy Jamieson: This information is not collected centrally as frequency of injecting depends on the strength of drug available and severity of addiction.

Education

Mr Andrew Welsh (Angus) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what government support is available for the teaching of non-European languages.

Hugh Henry: Since 2001 the Scottish Executive has provided education authorities with £22.5 million for language learning and teaching. This funding should be used to support the teaching of any languages and in offering funding for 2006-07, the Executive specifically asked education authorities to work towards providing "a diversified range of languages for young people in schools, so that they have the opportunity to try lesser known or community languages such as Chinese, Urdu etc".

  Support for language learning teaching is also provided through grant aided expenditure but it is for local authorities to determine how this is spent.

  In addition to direct funding to authorities, the Executive also provides core funding to the Scottish Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research to support language teachers in Scotland.

  The Executive is also providing specific support for Chinese, as outlined in the answers to questions S2W-31813 and S2W-31815 on 26 February 2007. All answers to written parliamentary questions are available on the Parliament’s website, the search facility for which can be found at: http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/webapp/wa.search.

Health

Stewart Stevenson (Banff and Buchan) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive what co-operation there has been in the last five years between NHS Scotland and public health services elsewhere in respect of (a) computer systems, (b) communication services and (c) other matters, where the value added from that co-operation exceeded £100,000.

Mr Andy Kerr: There has been wide ranging co-operation with other public health services, particularly other UK countries with whom we meet regularly to discuss common needs and requirements.

  Where there is a match between the information requirements of NHS in both Scotland and England, both countries can benefit from the use of computer systems procured and maintained by one country but made available, within EU procurement rules, to another. There are a number of such examples including:

  a computer system which supports clinical terminology and coding systems;

  the national (UK) drug dictionary used in our e-Pharmacy programme;

  a financial computer systems framework which was negotiated by Scotland and has been heavily used by NHS England;

  the contract for NHS24’s patient management system which is a variation to the contract negotiated by England;

  enterprise software licences have been purchased under contracts which were negotiated by NHS England and varied to suit Scottish circumstances;

  servers to provide central and local archive facilities for our picture archive and communications system.

  NHS Scotland communications services are underpinned by the N3 broadband telecommunications contract which is a UK NHS contract providing secure private network facilities and the separate NHSMail contract providing secure email facilities to all NHS staff across the UK.

  On other related matters we have collaborated to mutual benefit with other health departments on information standards, and clinical terminology, coding and messaging standards.

Historic Sites

Cathy Peattie (Falkirk East) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what the next steps will be now that the Antonine Wall has been nominated as part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.

Patricia Ferguson: A decision on whether to accept the nomination of the Antonine Wall will be taken by the World Heritage Committee, a United Nations Education, Science and Culture Organization (UNESCO) committee, in summer 2008. The nomination, including an associated management plan for the site, will be evaluated before this date. The documentation will be checked by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre in Paris before detailed examination is carried out by the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), the body with the formal role of advising UNESCO on potential cultural World Heritage Sites.

  The outstanding universal values of the proposed site as well as its authenticity and integrity will be assessed by an ICOMOS evaluator, who will visit the site in summer 2007. Checks will also be made to ensure that the necessary protection and management structures are in place. If ICOMOS requires further information this must be requested from the UK government by 31 January 2008. The UK government will then have until 31 March 2008 to submit further information for consideration. Once ICOMOS have made their evaluation, the UK government will have one final opportunity to highlight any factual errors in the evaluation before the World Heritage Committee makes its decision on the nomination at its meeting in July 2008.

  In preparation for the ICOMOS site visit and the subsequent management of the site, Historic Scotland, the relevant agency within the Scottish Executive, is coordinating the establishment of a management group for the site involving key stakeholders.

  Copies of the Antonine Wall Nomination Document and Management Plan (Bib. number 41888) have been placed in the Scottish Parliament Information Centre.

Justice

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive after how many 999 calls to emergency call controllers requesting the assistance of police officers took three hours or more to respond in each year since 2000, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of 999 calls requesting police assistance and broken down by police force area and division.

Cathy Jamieson: This information is not held centrally. Chief constables of the individual Scottish police forces are responsible for the operation of this service.

Justice

Dr Elaine Murray (Dumfries) (Lab): To ask the Scottish Executive what action an individual can take against someone who has lied in an affidavit.

Cathy Jamieson: If an individual considers that the evidence provided by a person in an affidavit is false then they should bring this to the attention of the court dealing with the proceedings in which the affidavit has been lodged. The court will then decide what course of action should be taken.

  If an individual believes that a criminal offence has been committed they may also report the matter directly to the police for investigation.

Police

Christine Grahame (South of Scotland) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive after how many 999 calls to emergency call controllers requesting the assistance of police officers took an hour or more to respond in each year since 2000, expressed also as a percentage of the total number of 999 calls requesting police assistance and broken down by police force area and division.

Cathy Jamieson: This information is not held centrally. Chief constables of the individual Scottish police forces are responsible for the operation of this service.

Sex Offenders

Mr Kenny MacAskill (Lothians) (SNP): To ask the Scottish Executive how many offenders placed on the sex offenders’ register have been missing and untraced in each month since 2003.

Cathy Jamieson: As I stated in my response to the answer to question S2W-28942 on 18 October 2006, this information is not held centrally. The number of sex offenders on the register who are unaccounted for and being sought changes on an almost hourly basis due to the nature of proactive policing efforts to trace them. This will now include posting the details of certain high risk offenders on the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre website.